


safe & sound

by clarkesquad



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hunger Games AU, or the one where lexa is clarke's mentor and a lot of people die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 15:39:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarkesquad/pseuds/clarkesquad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a steak knife, to be exact. The first one she finds on a tray of cutlery, provided by the Capitol. They’re generous folk, if you don’t count the annual systematic execution of twenty-three underage citizens. </p><p>She didn’t mean to end up here, with a knife against her mentor’s throat, threatening to hurt one of the only two people who hold the responsibility of keeping her alive, but Clarke thinks maybe she should cut herself some slack. It’s been a long day, the government wants her dead, and her nerves are wrecked.</p><p>She hasn’t been keeping track, but she can’t have known Lexa for more than twenty minutes. </p><p>And still, here she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	safe & sound

**Author's Note:**

> i got an anon the other day who floated the idea of a hunger games au with me and then i abandoned the remainder of my chill and spent the weekend writing this. hope y'all like it.

Nobody really asks about the Hunger Games, once a tribute becomes a victor. Not the people who matter, anyway. And if they do, they never ask again. Maybe it’s because nobody really wants to hear about how she sliced a fourteen year old’s throat.

Or held a fifteen year old girl underwater until her lifeless body had nothing left to fight back with.

Or snapped the neck of a twelve year old girl.

Or plunged a knife into the stomach of a seventeen year old boy. Not just a boy. Her friend. The only person she trusted in that twisted fucking arena.

Nobody wants to ask about it. Or nobody wants to hear her tell it. It’s something she’s grateful for. There’s no way to explain it, really. There’s no way to describe what it feels like. Kill or be killed is an emotion in and of itself - raw and relentless. She can feel it like a second skin, even now. She thinks she’ll feel it until the day she dies.

Nobody really asks about the Hunger Games, once a tribute becomes a victor. Not the people who matter, anyway. But if they asked Clarke Griffin, she’d say they were the worst twelve days of her life.

The bright side? She doesn’t think her life could ever get quite that bad again. Yeah, she’s killed four people, but she’s still a glass half full kind of girl. Or she tries to be. Some days it’s harder. Today is one of those days. She used to not have those days.

Her name used to be Clarke Griffin. No comma. No further title. No “victor of the 48th hunger games.”

Clarke Griffin. Just Clarke Griffin.

-

**Six weeks ago.**

She’s seventeen, her name is Clarke Griffin, and she’s on a train to the Capitol. There are a lot of things she doesn’t understand about the Hunger Games, and the Capitol itself – but the one thing she knows is that it’s the farthest thing from a coincidence that she’s here.

Being the daughter of a victor and being reaped is _the farthest thing from a coincidence that there is_.

Clarke has two scenes playing on repeat in her mind, cycling in an out of each other, and fortunately, neither of these scenes have anything to do with her death - in spite of it being for the most part, inevitable. She hasn’t faced that reality yet.

She’s seventeen, she’s been chosen to be one of twenty-four children sent to fight to the death in an arena, and she still doesn’t feel like she’s going to die. There’s a disconnect. If she’s in the five stages of grief, she’s just hit denial. Hard and fast.

Instead of focusing on her more than likely death, Clarke picks at a string coming undone on the seam of her pants and continues to play over the same two scenes in her head until they start to combine, blending into one. One scene that has the potential to haunt her for a lifetime.

_Her Mother’s scream when her name was called._

_The soft clapping heard from the crowd - a force of habit._

_The rustling of shoes and clothes as the people she’s known all her life form a clear path to her execution._

_And then she’s locked in a negotiation room of some kind in the Justice Building. The walls are covered in unofficial documents. The room’s center piece is a long table with eight seats. They don’t try very hard to impress their tributes in District 7. This room was borrowed for the day, clearly._

_Her Mother is the first person through the door, and then she’s crying. And Clarke is crying. They both cry, until Clarke stops. She has to be strong. She has to be strong for her mother. She has to be strong for herself._

_“You have a chance to live.” When her Mom says it, it sounds more like she’s reminding herself._

_“I will.”_

_“Your instincts will tell you to take care of everybody else. Just like your Father tried to, in his games. But, Clarke, you have to promise me you won’t give up.”_

_“I won’t.”_

_“I can’t lose you too.” Her Mother grips at the back of Clarke’s head, stroking her hair like she did when she was a child._

_“You won’t.” She tries to say more, racks her brain for something that will comfort her Mother, but she has nothing past monosyllabic reassurances._

_“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”_

_“Mom, I mean it.”_

_She nods. “Good. Good.” Then she’s being pulled into a tight hug. “I love you so much, Clarke.”_

_“I love you too, Mom.”_

_“May we meet again.”_

_“May we meet again.”_

That’s scenario one. The other scene haunts her just as much. At least her mother isn’t sitting across from her to remind her of the pain she’s caused.

_The female tribute is chosen before the male. Clarke has been avoiding a thousand gazes on stage for less than a minute before a slip of paper is drawn from the glass bowl that selects the male tribute._

_A boy’s name is called - he doesn’t have the time to wonder if he’ll ever see his family again, because Wells steps forward in the blink of an eye._

_He doesn’t hesitate._

_“I volunteer as tribute.”_

_Clarke’s heart breaks almost a minute later, once Wells takes the stage. He has tears in his eyes - so does she - and his handshake is firm. He’s confident in his choice. She’s confident that this is easily the worst decision Wells Jaha has ever made in his life, and it hurts to watch him make it._

_Well. Second worst decision he’s ever made._

When she thinks about the worst decision, that hurt turns to anger.

In fact, if she’s going through the stages of grief, she’s pretty sure she just hit anger.

When she was fourteen, she punched a boy in her math class. She can’t even remember why she did it, but it felt good. She’d like to feel good like that again. Preferably by punching Wells.

She’d do anything to get that kicked puppy look off his face. He doesn’t have a right to look at her like that.

From across the room, their escort stands from his seat. His name is Jackson. He’s short, flamboyant, with countless colored highlights in his dark hair. “You two wait here, I’ll go fetch your mentors, alright dolls?”

Clarke locks her jaw and narrows her eyes in response. Wells nods, feigning respect. The truth is, neither of them respect Jackson. Neither of them respect anything to do with these Games. They’ve bonded over that for years.

 _Yet here we are,_ she thinks.

The door slides shut behind Jackson. The glasses and bowls on the tables around them clink, accompanied only by the machine hum of the train.

Wells talks first, if only to buy himself another second of time. Time for her to be rational about this. She has no interest in being rational.

“Look-”

“What were you thinking?”

She doesn’t know what he expects from her, but it’s not this. If she could find it in her to laugh, she would. If Wells thought she would find this heroic, he couldn’t be more wrong.

He tenses. “When they called your name - I had to do it. I volunteered for y _ou_.”

“No, you volunteered for _you_ , Wells. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Look, I’m sorry I got your Dad arrested, but I couldn’t let you die knowing that you hate me.”

She clenches her fists and sits up in the leather chair. “They didn’t arrest my father, Wells. They _executed_ him and called it a suicide. I do hate you.” Clarke shakes her head. “But I don’t want to kill you.”

“You told me that you did, once.”

She can feel the adrenaline in her veins. She’s _angry_ , she’s never been this openly furious. No one has that luxury back home. You get in fights and you get punished. Beaten, whipped, or starved. Sometimes all three. She’s seen people killed over fistfights. It’s why she has only one memory of true violence. Citizens of District 7 don’t have the luxury to get angry. But now, she does. Now she’s being shipped off to an arena where nothing gets you as far as violence does.

She has the pent up fury and fight of seventeen years and if Wells gives her one more innocent look, she knows she’ll boil over.

“What did you expect? You ran like a coward to your father the minute my Dad got even close to disrespecting the capitol.”

Wells focuses his view on the terrain zipping past them through the window of the train. “I made a mistake, Clarke.”

She reels back, shakes her head and then stands to her feet. She can’t sit right now. She can’t relax, she can’t enjoy the Capitol provided luxuries around them while her former best friend tries to apologize her Dad’s execution away.

“I made a mistake, Clarke?” She mimics. “Not good enough. _NOT_ good enough. You can’t do this to me, Wells. You can’t have my father executed and then-.”

“What do you want me to say?!” He screams back, standing up too. He easily has six inches on her, maybe more. But that doesn’t stop her from stepping closer, and she can see he’s afraid of what she has to say.

“I want an _explanation_. I want to know how this works in your selfish mind.” Clarke shakes her head. “I want to know why the hell you turned him in, _I_ want to know why the HELL you’re here.”

“I’m here to protect you.”

“Protect me?” She laughs, but it’s a hollow one. “Let me just get this straight. You volunteered to protect me from the same exact games my father wanted to stop?”

“I’m sorry-”

“I watched my Dad die!” She screams. “I watched them put a bullet in his head in my living room. I watched them pull him up by the shirt and execute him and then I watched them turn around and call it a suicide to everyone I knew. That’s on you, Wells. _You_ did that.”

Saying it out loud feels good. But saying it out loud feels like the worst thing she’s ever done. She thinks there needs to be a word for the kind of regret you’ve earned the right to feel. The kind of regret that comes free of any real guilt.

“Wells, the only reason I’m not an orphan is because I kept my mouth shut. The only reason I’m in these games in the first place is because they can’t predict how long I’ll stay quiet. _You_ put me here. You don’t get to talk about protecting me. You don’t even get to look at me.”

She steps back, falling into the leather seat. Wells stands frozen in place for a few more minutes before he staggers back, too.

“You shouldn’t be here, Wells.”

_-_

When Jackson comes back with their mentors – two girls that Clarke vaguely recognizes as previous victors – Wells has already done her a favor and moved seats across the aisle, facing away from her.

She’s grateful. It’s the least he could do.

Their mentors are intimidating. _Her_ mentors are intimidating. She needs to start distancing herself from Wells, physically and mentally. She isn’t responsible for him in that arena. She isn’t responsible for anyone but herself. That’s how she needs to see this. She owes that to her Mom.

The blonde woman, Anya, stands against the wall of the compartment. Clarke recognizes her immediately when she takes a look at her face. She was the victor of the 35th Hunger Games. Not one that Clarke remembers well, she was only four years old, but it was a historic one nonetheless. Anya was ruthless. Anya was skilled. She never made a single alliance, claiming to this day that it’s the only thing that kept her alive. There’s a particularly famous clip of her saying “Making an alliance would have meant certain death for me,” and nearly everyone in Panem has seen it. It’s the reason everyone found it so strange that she pushed so hard to get alliances for her tributes in the following years. Her Mother had always told Clarke that it was an act. She was just too afraid to connect with someone she might have to kill.

Clarke risks a glance towards Wells and she thinks she might understand her mentor more than she expects her to.

Anya pours herself a drink and leans back against the wall again, propping her foot up against the wallpaper. Her clothes are fancy - leather boots, tight black pants, a leather jacket with a number of straps that seem to have no real purpose, and bracelets hanging off of her wrists. Her make up is perfect, her hair just curly enough to make her the picture of beauty, but not by Capitol standards. She’s nowhere near flashy enough.

Neither of them are. Her other mentor sits across from her in the seat that used to be Wells’. She’s in a similar outfit, only she looks much more like a businesswoman than Anya. Her silk gray shirt matches the look in her eyes.

Cold. Professional. Piercing.

Lexa Woods. Clarke remembers her games well. She won three years ago in one of the longest Hunger Games that Panem had ever seen. It lasted almost a month, and it was brutal.

Lexa stares unabashedly at her and Clarke takes it as an invitation to stare back. She takes in everything about her – from her eyes to her lips to the way she has her hair pulled up in a bun. Lexa purses her lips and leans forward.

“What’s your name?”

“Clarke Griffin.”

Lexa nods. “I knew your father.”

She tries not to show the kind of effects those four words have on her. She needs to be strong. First impressions are everything, and these mentors have to keep her alive. She needs to act now, before they form their own opinions.

She needs to speak now.

“You should know, I’m stronger than most of the tributes you get.”

She isn’t met with much of a response. Anya sets her drink down on the nearest tray and crosses her arms.

Lexa narrows her eyes. “Go on.”

Tough crowd. But she needs them to be impressed. She needs them to be invested.

“I know how to make a fire. My Mother was a healer. I know almost everything she knows about how to protect myself from dying of infection.” At the mention of her Mother, she recognizes the shift in Lexa’s eyes. She’s seen it before. Clarke was a victor’s kid, raised in the Victor’s Village. She’s one of the privileged. “Look, I know I didn’t come from the same parts of District 7 as you, but I know these games better than most tributes. And I know that I still need to know more than how to fight and how to find food. Every game is different. Every gamemaker is different.”

“How do you know this?”

“My Father.” Clarke sits up straighter. “He was a victor.” As soon as she says it, Clarke realizes he was more than that. He was Lexa’s mentor. He was Anya’s mentor.

Lexa doesn’t say anything, and out of fear that this conversation could start and end with just this exchange, Clarke talks again. “He taught me how to fight. He told me it was likely I would get reaped, because the Capitol knew me all my life.” She shrugs. “Victor’s kids are never safe.”

“Your father was a strong man.” That’s all she says, and Clarke hopes that her pleas did her some good.

-

She didn’t mean to end up here, with her knife against her mentor’s throat, threatening to hurt one of the only two people who hold the responsibility of keeping her alive, but Clarke thinks maybe she should cut herself some slack. It’s been a long day, the government wants her dead, and her nerves are wrecked.

Maybe she should explain.

Lexa seems to have two modes. She either stares at Clarke, saying no more than ten syllables per sentence, inspecting her, or she watches Anya. Clarke has a working theory that Anya and Lexa can pull off telepathic communication. They have one of these conversations for a few minutes. Lexa blinks. Anya shakes her head. Lexa rolls her eyes. Anya sighs.

It’s Anya who speaks first. “You two, decide now. It’s a waste of our time to delay the inevitable. Will you be training together or separately?”

Wells locks eyes with Clarke.

“Separately.” She says.

“Good.” Anya pushes herself off the wall and speaks to Lexa. “I’ll take the girl.”

“No.” Lexa raises a hand. “Leave her with me.” Anya raises an eyebrow, but Lexa just sighs, purses her lips, and says, “We’ll switch later.”

Anya accepts that, and then she and Wells are out the door and sliding into another compartment of the train.

Lexa stands to pour herself a drink. “Have you ever killed someone, Clarke?”

What kind of question is that? Lexa definitely needs a new icebreaker.

“No.”

She brings the glass to her lips, drinking the caramel colored liquor like she’s done it a thousand times. “Do you have any idea what it’s like?”

“No, I don’t.”

Lexa sits back down across from Clarke and crosses one leg over the other. She leans back in her chair and rests the drink on her armrest. She stares into the glass. “It haunts you. The moment itself is packed with adrenaline. You can barely feel who you are when you’re watching the life drain out of a person’s body. Out of a child’s body. What they don’t tell you is that killing a person... it kills you back. It will haunt you for the rest of your days.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Do you think you’re ready for the arena? You’re not. You could never be ready for these games. I’ve seen four of my tributes die. Anya has seen twenty-five. Your father saw even more.”

Clarke clenches her jaw. “ _Why_ are you telling me this?”

“You need to know the odds you’re facing.”

She knows the odds. She knows them even better than Lexa. She knows that she doesn’t have a one in twenty-four shot of surviving. She watched her father die at the hand of the Capitol, and being reaped is the farthest thing from a coincidence there is.

“How about instead of telling me how likely it is that I’m gonna die, you actually do your job and teach me how to live?” She snaps. Lexa doesn’t react, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. Clarke pushes herself out of her chair and takes a drink directly from the bottle of liquor. She doesn’t even know what it is, but it burns on the way down and she wants more.

From behind her, she hears Lexa stand up and step closer.

“You think highly of your abilities.”

“Yeah, well it’s better than the alternative.”

“It could serve you well. If you don’t die in the initial bloodbath.”

Clarke whirls around, landing almost too close to Lexa. “Why did you ask for me if you weren’t going to help? Anya was going to train me, she was going to be useful, before you sent her off with Wells.”

Lexa rolls her eyes. “Your friend bores me, I had no interest in speaking with him.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“He’s too passive. You were stepping all over him before we came in.”

Clarke realizes she’s still holding the bottle in her hand. She reaches back to set it on the table. “You heard us?”

“The walls are thin. Anya was impressed.”

“And you?”

Her eyes sweep over Clarke from the bottom up. “Hell hath no fury.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I meant it as one.”

Lexa still isn’t doing anything remotely helpful. She should be listening to stories of the arena right now, she should be taking notes. She should be training, she should be doing _something._

“Look. We’re wasting time, when are you going to start training me?”

“When are you going to realize how little a difference training makes? There’s no way to prepare yourself for what you’re about to face.”

And that’s how she ends up here.

With a knife to her mentor’s throat.

A steak knife, to be specific. It’s the first one she finds on a tray of cutlery. Provided by the Capitol. They’re generous folk, if you don’t count the annual systematic execution of twenty-three underage citizens.

She hasn’t been keeping track, but she can’t have known Lexa for more than twenty minutes, in all. And still, here she is. She doesn’t think through her move, just executes it as swiftly as possible. One hard pull, so Lexa is facing the wall. One hard shove, so she’s against it. She grabs the blade and presses it against her mentor, along with most of her own body. She knows Lexa is more than capable of getting out of this position, but somewhere between the press of Clarke’s body against hers and the press of the blade against her neck, Lexa is too shocked to move. She uses that element of surprise to get her point across before Lexa fights back and probably kills her.

She hasn’t ruled that out as a possibility. Dying, right now, because it’s been a shitty day and she’s pissed and really bad at handling it. Dying because she decided to threaten someone who has legitimately killed people.

“When was the last time you were in this position?” Clarke presses the flat side of the blade against Lexa’s throat. She could still hurt her, with the right pressure against the right angle. But this way she can’t draw blood by accident. “I remember. I watched. You were sixteen and you had a knife to your throat. His name was Tristan. He was the last person you had to kill.”

Lexa’s tone is harsh. “What makes you think I couldn’t do it again? Right now.” Her eyes drift down towards the knife.

“Nothing.” Clarke can still remember watching Lexa take down one of the Careers singlehandedly. “You could do it. Because you were trained. _You have to train me._ It’s your job.”

Lexa presses her lips together.

“What happened to you, Lexa? I knew you. We went to school together.” It’s true, not that they were even close to friends. But she’s desperate to make any kind of connection. Anything for Lexa to see her as _worth_ something. “You used to sit three seats away from me in history class.”

“Four seats.” Lexa avoids her gaze. “It was four seats.”

“What happened to you?”

She gets the idea that the knife in her hand has become more of a prop than anything.

“That’s a question you’ll soon find the answer to on your own.”

“The games did this to you?” She knew the games had a massive impact, everyone does. But this. This is an entirely different person. Lexa is cold. Heartless. Nothing like the girl she vaguely remembers.

She tries not to dwell too much on what that means about her own father. About who he used to be. She doesn’t have the time to deal with those thoughts. And she definitely doesn’t have the time to deal with Lexa’s shit.

She twists the blade so that the sharp side is pressing into Lexa’s skin, bringing the knife back into action. There’s a brief flash of fear in Lexa’s eyes. Good.

“You let them do this to you. They got what they wanted, they got in your head.”

“You’d be smart to remind yourself how I got here,” Lexa warns her.

Clarke laughs. “Ruthless victor? What a joke. You think you’re such a terrifying force when really you’re just a coward afraid of losing another tribute.”

There’s a beat of silence. Lexa looks rattled, and when the glass compartment door slides open, she blinks, taking in Anya’s presence. She shoves back against Clarke. With an expert flick of Lexa’s wrist, Clarke’s arm is thrown back and the knife clatters to the ground.

The good thing is she’s not dead. But _not dead_ isn’t enough. Not yet. When Anya crosses her arms and takes a seat to observe them, Clarke  turns back to Lexa.

“I need you to not let them in. I need you to show me you’re not just a product of the Capitol.” She looks to Anya and back at Lexa. “Both of you.”

“We are what we are.”

Clarke scoffs, shakes her head, and drops herself in a seat across from Anya. She toys with the edge of the armrest, watching her fingers dance across the leather. Watching anything but Lexa. “I’m getting out of that arena alive.” She glances at Anya, who at the very least looks impressed. Good. “With or without your help.”

-

She doesn’t see Wells again that night. She’s given her own room, and Anya and Lexa spend their time with her in there. That leaves their escort, Jackson, with Wells duty.

The part of her that misses her best friend feels awful. If he’s half as freaked out about being on this train as she is, then he’s scared out of his mind. And alone. And friendless.

The other part of her says screw him. She listens to that part.

She and Anya watch the reruns of the reapings. Anya does what she can to comment on the possible strengths and weaknesses of each tribute. Clarke is grateful for Anya. She’s... surprisingly helpful. And she could use some help.

Lexa sits down next to her on the couch when the District 3 tributes are reaped. A young girl who cries, and a boy who looks like he wants to.

Lexa shuts her eyes and falls backwards into the cushion.

Anya breaks the silence. “Finn Collins.”

“Who’s Finn Collins?”

Lexa sighs and pushes herself up. “He’s the boyfriend of one of the victors.”

“District 3. Raven Reyes?” Clarke does the math in her head. “She was the victor before you.”

“Yes.”

Clarke allows herself a bitter laugh. “These reapings are rigged.”

Anya rolls her eyes. “Took you long enough.”

“I mean, I knew they were rigged, but... I thought unless they had something against you, it was just… Left up to chance.”

Lexa shakes her head. “That’s what you’ve yet to understand, Clarke. They have something against everyone. If you’re not from the Capitol, you’re disposable.”

They fall back into a tense silence. Clarke tries to keep track of the tributes as best she can, tries to remember their names. Atom from District 1. Finn from District 3. Jasper and Harper from District 5. Maya, District 6. Monroe and Miller, District 9. Charlotte, District 12. The other names and faces fall through the cracks, but it’s late, and she’s tired, and her public execution is only weeks away, so she lets herself fall asleep.

Despite everything, she sleeps comfortably. Even the couch is more comfortable than any bed she’s ever slept in.

-

She wakes up once, in the middle of the night. Anya is gone, but Lexa is still by her side, watching the television. Reruns of the reapings, now with commentary and interviews of the tributes’ loved ones. She falls asleep again before she can question why Lexa hasn’t left.

-

The rest of the train ride is fairly uneventful. District 7 isn’t far from the Capitol, and by the time Jackson wakes her up, they’re pulling into the city.

Jackson tries to dress her in a dress that is 80% reflective. Anya disapproves of the mirror effect, clearly, because she dismisses him and rifles through Clarke's provided wardrobe for a pink sweater and a pair of white pants.

"I hope you're ready to make a mediocre impression this morning." Lexa says, marching into Clarke's room unannounced.

"Mediocre?"

Anya answers for her. "Yes. The last thing we want to do is make them notice you."

"But sponsors-"

Lexa speaks up with a sigh. "You already _have_ sponsors. You're a victor's daughter, and your father is a legend."

"Was."

Anya shakes her head. "Not in this place. Victors are immortal. He _is_ a legend. Put this on."

When she leaves her room on the train, Wells is dressed similarly. His black t-shirt was replaced with a new one, one with a much nicer fabric. His boots are new, too. Everything they wear looks new. Polished. But not totally preposterous to pass off as the clothes of two tributes from District 7. Especially not two wealthy tributes like them.

So they're protecting him, too. She's both bitter and relieved.

Once they step off the train, everything moves fast. Everything is flashing lights and grabby hands, Capitol citizens screaming her name, and cameras in her face. She goes from building to building, room to room, stranger to stranger. She shakes at least a thousand hands. She loses track of Wells, Lexa, and Anya when she’s ushered inside what looks like a medical facility.

And then they strip her naked. Yeah, not what she was expecting either. They force her through baths and showers and more showers and more baths. They shave her, wax her, scrub every trace of poverty or hunger or _inconvenience_ from her body. In the Capitol, there is no room for anything but perfection.

After a few hours of this treatment, she meets her stylist. His name is Monty, and he smiles at her as if he isn’t decorating her like food on a plate served to the Capitol. Maybe he doesn’t see it that way. Maybe he just has a nice smile.

Monty seems sweet.

But he’s not very good at his job. Then again, if Lexa and Anya were serious about her being as unremarkable as possible, then maybe he’s very good at his job. Either way, the sleeveless bark-textured jumpsuits will make sure she isn’t remembered for her opening ceremonies.

Monty curls her hair just enough to make it wavy. She feels pretty, despite everything. Each district has their own chariot, and she sits on the edge of the District 7 one, tying her shoes. Lexa and Anya wait by the sidelines. She does everything she can to catch Lexa’s eye, if only because she has nothing else to do while she waits. And if she’s being honest, Lexa isn’t hard to look at.

Not even a little.

A voice from her left draws her attention away from her mentor.

“Hey. You’re the girl whose Dad was a victor, right?”

It’s another tribute, one that she recognizes almost right away. “You’re the one who’s dating your mentor.”

“Yeah.” He crosses his arms and smiles across the room at Lexa, who she realizes is looking at her. _Finally_. “From the looks of it, we have a type.” He doesn’t give her time to wonder what that means. “I’m Finn.”

“Clarke.”

A bell rings out from the other side of the room, and tributes start to line up to their chariots. Finn offers her a mock salute. “May we meet again.”

She nods at him and finishes tying her boots. When she looks up, Wells offers her a small smile.

“Hey. Me again.” He steps closer tentatively. “I guess our ride is here, huh?”

Clarke stiffens. “Guess so.”

“Look.” He steps onto the chariot. “I just want you to know, I didn’t volunteer to get you to forgive me.”

“Good.” She takes her place on the left hand side of the cart. “Because I’m not going to.”

“I wanted to help you, Clarke.” He stands next to her, and together they take the reins. “What I did was unforgivable. And if there was any way to go back, if there was anything I could have done to save him, I would do it. In a heartbeat. You have to know that.”

The chariot starts to move. She blinks the tears out of her eyes before they start to form.

The chance for talking is gone the moment they get pulled into the open. The crowds are hyper. The music is loud. The speed of the chariots, a little unsettling. President Wallace makes a speech about the games, something she’s heard too many times, and something she’s not eager to hear again.

Clearly, she’s not lucky enough for that to be the end of her conversation with Wells because when they pull into the makeshift garage, he talks again.

“Listen, I can’t go back, Clarke. I can’t save your father.”

“You could have saved him then.”

His shoulders slump. “But I can’t now. I can still save you. I can still protect you.”

“I don’t need your protection.” She snaps, turning on her heel and stepping off the chariot.

He follows her. “I know you don’t. But, Clarke, come on. If there’s even the slightest chance you’ll come out of this alive, I want to be there to make sure you do. It’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

She presses the elevator button with a little too much force.

“He would have wanted me to volunteer.”

“Don’t. Don’t talk about him.”

“I’m sorry.”

She scoffs. “Wells, when are you gonna get it through your head? Sorry isn’t enough. Sorry is what you say when you spill coffee on someone’s favorite shirt. Sorry isn’t what you say when you have someone’s Dad executed. You want me to forgive you? I can’t even look at you anymore. Don’t be sorry, Wells. Be _gone_. Stay out of my way.” The elevator door slides open and she steps inside alone. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”

-

As soon as she’s behind the doors of the elevator, she realizes she has no idea where she’s supposed to go. The other tributes had been filing into elevators one by one, but she hadn’t quite thought this through.

Still, 12 floors. 12 districts. Makes sense. She pushes 7 and hopes for the best.

She was right. When the doors slide open again, she’s greeted with a long, well-decorated hallway. It carries her into a loft area. Everything from the furniture to the lighting shouts luxury and comfort. It’s so extravagant that it feels foreign, and that’s saying a lot for a girl who was raised in the Victor’s Village.

Lexa’s voice is the first she hears.

“Clarke. Where’s the other boy?” Clarke lets herself stare for a moment. Lexa has already changed out of her Capitol clothes, opting for a gray sweater and black pants. She looks a little more normal. A little younger.

“He took the stairs.”

“You did well tonight.”

“I thought we were shooting for something a little less than well.”

Lexa turns on her heel and starts to walk into another room, motioning for Clarke to follow. “Your entrance didn’t make much of an impression, which is what we wanted. The less they’re looking at you, the less they’ll be afraid of you.”

If only Lexa knew how afraid they already were of her.

“Besides, you don’t need to make such an entrance that puts you on the gamemaker’s radar to impress the people of the Capitol.” They stop in the living room and Lexa takes a seat on the expensive couch. “You’re a beautiful girl, Clarke. That, in and of itself will get you more sponsors than you think.”

She smiles and sits down. The couch is curved, putting her somewhere between next to Lexa and across from her. “You think I’m beautiful?” She knows she’s beautiful, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it from Lexa. Like she said, Lexa’s not hard to look at herself.

It could be the lighting, but she thinks she might see Lexa blushing. “I’m just... stating the facts, Clarke. Your physicality is always essential in the Hunger Games, just not in the way most people would expect.”

Lexa watches her for a reaction, but Clarke doesn’t offer one. She just watches Lexa observe her, legs crossed and lips parted just slightly. She’s watching Clarke closely, but her eyes continue to drift away from her face.

And that’s when it really hits her. Because this is the opposite of where her mind was going, you just don’t think about these things when you’re weeks away from almost certain death. But Lexa looks at her like she’s art and she’s definitely thinking about it now. Lexa is attracted to her, on some level. Clarke supposes she feels the same way, but she’s never been shy about admitting that sort of thing to herself.

She fights a smile. Lexa may be cold and heartless, but behind those mile-high walls that she’s built, there’s a regular girl with all the same desires that she has.

Or at the very least, there’s at least one person in the Capitol that doesn’t want her dead.

-

In the morning, she sees Wells again in the dining room.

They have one day before training starts. A day for adjustment, Jackson tells them. A day to discuss your training with your mentors, a day to prepare.

She prepares by eating two stacks of pancakes and an omelette before 9 a.m.

Wells comes in offering her a gentle smile, and sits across from her. He stabs a few pancakes from the center plate and drops them onto his. “You know, you should really rethink this whole hating me thing.”

She rolls her eyes and drinks chocolate milk out of what is essentially a wine glass.

“It’s not just the games. At best, only one of us is gonna make it out alive. We need alliances in this game, Clarke. We need each other.” He shrugs. “We’ve gotta be friends again.”

She throws down her fork, letting it clatter against the glass table. “You got my Dad killed. Not possible.”

“This is the Hunger Games, Clarke. You wouldn’t believe the things we’re capable of.”

-

After that, she spends the rest of the day locked in her room.

-

The only time she leaves her room that day is when the sun has already gone down. She can’t sleep, and maybe that’s something she should get used to. She won’t be getting much more sleep from now on.

She might never get a good night’s sleep again. Somehow, in the end, it’s the little things that make her want to cry.

She wraps one of the Capitol’s fancy silk robes around her body and steps into the empty hallway. Clarke is halfway to the living room when she hears Anya’s voice coming from one of the bedrooms. A sliver of light pours from where her door hangs open just an inch. It’s enough that Clarke can make out what she’s saying, if she pays close enough attention.

“She could win this. She’s capable enough.” Anya says something unintelligible, and then, “I’m serious, Lexa. We could have a winner on our hands. I haven’t seen potential like that in years. Not since you.” There’s another silence, and Clarke can’t tell if Lexa is speaking or not. Whatever she’s doing, it’s too quiet.

“Lexa, you can’t treat her like the others.”

“And how is that, exactly?” Lexa’s voice. Clarke steps closer to the door.

“Like children.”

“They _are_ children.”

“So were we. You’re not even 20. Who are you trying to fool, Lexa?”

A pause. More silence. And then Anya speaks again. Clarke thinks she might never be able to show Anya how truly grateful she is for what she’s hearing. “We can’t let her slip through the cracks. We have a chance to save her.”

After a beat, “I agree.” Clarke lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

A door slides open somewhere down the hall, distracting her just long enough to miss part of the conversation coming from inside.

Then she hears Anya again, with a touch of humor in her voice. “If anyone is toying with anyone, it’s her with you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Lexa fires back.

“You can deny it all you like, but you see something in her.”

“Like you said,” She says, “Clarke has potential.”

“Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”

Clarke bites her lip and closes her eyes, silently thanking Anya. They want the same thing she does, she just needs them to believe in her.

-

She has two things on her mind when Anya asks her and Wells if they want to be trained - in an official capacity - independent of each other. The first is the conversation that she heard last night. _Clarke has potential._ No mention of Wells.

The second thing on her mind is her father’s funeral. Wells arriving, all in black. Wells having the nerve to apologize in front of her Mother. Wells insisting that he did what had to be done, on the day she buried her father. She locks her jaw and nods.

“Yes. We want independent training.”

Lexa takes this as her cue and rises from the dining room table where they sit. “Good. You’ll be with me today.” She looks at Anya. “Tomorrow we’ll trade tributes.”

Anya and Wells leave, and she’s not complaining. For the shallow reason and the important one. The shallow reason - well, she fascinates her. And by the way Lexa is looking at her, she can tell she fascinates her too.

But it’s the important reason that has her standing tall, giving her every physical cue that she’s ready to learn. The important reason is because this is Lexa Woods in front of her. And Clarke watched her games start to finish. Lexa is good.

“So. Clarke.” Lexa’s eyes scan her from head to toe. “What are your strengths?”

“I’m good with an axe. Better with a gun, but they’d never give me one in the arena.”

“Where did you learn to shoot a gun?” She says, a hint of an impressed smile on her face.

“My father. I can also hunt. A little. And I’m strong.”

She rolls her eyes. “Everyone who has a chance to win this game is strong. You have to have something more than that.”

Clarke decides not to explain just how strong she is. She’ll see, when they start training. Strong isn’t a good enough word for what she can do. District 7 is the lumber district, and being one of the privileged in the village did nothing to stop her from working the same jobs as everyone else. Lumber transport was one of them.

“I’m alright with knives. I could use some help with the weapons, but I’m good at hand-to-hand combat.” As an afterthought, she adds, “I was on the wrestling team.”

“Good. It’s a start. Tonight you’ll have your private session with the gamemakers. You’ll present one of your skills, but we want to approach this the same way that we approached the opening ceremonies.”

“So... I show them my most mediocre skill?”

She smiles. “Something like that.”

-

She gets a 7. Not bad, but not good. It’s exactly what they were shooting for, though. Lexa walks her to the waiting room outside of the private rooms. She coaches her.

_“Anything too low and they’ll get suspicious. You’re not just lowering the other tributes’ expectations, you’re lowering the gamemakers’. Don’t aim too high, but don’t miss.”_

_“Got it.”_

_“Do you know what you’re going to show them?”_

_“Knives, I think. I’m alright with knife throwing, but I’m rusty.”_

_Lexa fights off a smile. Clarke feels like she’s starting to live for those half smiles. “I threw knives for my skill, too.”_

_“Yeah, but you got a 10 and probably scared the shit out of them.”_

_“You’re not wrong.”_

Her performance is nowhere near as good as Lexa’s, and she gets a 7.

When they announce the score, it’s the first time she sees Lexa smile. _Really_ smile. And her half-smile’s got nothing on the hopeful grin she gives Anya when the scores are announced.

Wells gets a 9. Nobody comments on it, and it’s safe to say that Anya and Lexa have officially started to neglect his training. Then again, he didn’t come here to win, did he? He came as a last ditch effort to redeem himself, she knows that. She reminds herself of this as often as she can.

The room clears out after a few minutes and the television program is replaced by a rerun of an old Hunger Games. The one with all the water. It’s the one that Raven Reyes won, by piecing together a bomb and blowing up the bridge that kept everyone from the food that the Careers had hoarded in the cornucopia. Some of the tributes that were left could swim, but most couldn’t. Of the four tributes who made it across the river, two killed each other trying to take her out. Raven slit the throats of the last two without a moment’s hesitation, despite the injuries she’d sustained. A piece of shrapnel in her spine, to be specific. Clarke doesn’t remember the details exactly, but she knows she couldn’t walk for a while. Everyone knew that she could, if she was willing to go under the knife. The Capitol has the technology to help her walk again, but she gets by just fine on some kind of homemade brace. It was a small rebellion, but one that was admired throughout the districts.

But Clarke knows nothing about bombs and has nothing to learn that she could use from Raven’s games, so she switches off the television and wanders into the dining room. Lexa sits at the head of the table, staring into a glass of something. Gin, maybe.

“You gonna drink that?”

“I haven’t decided.”

Clarke pulls out a chair next to her. “Seems like an easy decision.”

Lexa licks her lips and furrows her eyebrows, like she’s struggling for the right words. “I spent my first year as a mentor inebriated, for the most part. I had a lot of trauma, I couldn’t focus on putting another person in that arena. I couldn’t even think about the arena without wanting to die.” She laughs without even the hint of humor in her smile. “Ironic, isn’t it? You spend the worst days of your life in that arena doing everything you can to survive. The minute they let you out, all you want to do is take it back.” She looks at Clarke and her expression softens. “I guess this isn’t very encouraging, is it?”

“No. Not really. But if you need to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

Lexa shakes her head and pushes the glass away from her. “No. We have more important things to talk about.” She drums her fingers against the table once, twice, and then lays her hand flat against the glass. “Do you truly think you have it in you to win?”

Clarke thinks about the fact that she was reaped for a reason. To shut her up. To get her out of the way. To kill her. She’s here because the Capitol wants her dead, so no, she doesn’t have a clue if she can win. Not really.

“Yes.”

“Good. That makes two of us.”

Clarke smiles. “Thank you.” She means it. And she can see that Lexa means it, and right now that means everything.

“Don’t thank me. This is your game now. You could be a victor, a victor your people look to. Pour their hopes and dreams into. Much of these games is about nothing more than that.”

“Can I ask you something?” Lexa nods. “How do you look up to someone who’s killed people?”

“It’s simple. You’ve already done it. You look up to me. Anya. Your father. We’re all killers.” Her eyes drift back towards the glass in front of her. “That’s what it means to be a victor, Clarke. The truth is, we must realize what’s most important and fight for that, no matter the cost. In that arena, your life is all that matters. Even when you leave it, your fight is never over. Anything that stands in the way of your survival – be it a person, be it a connection with someone, be it your humanity – you must kill it.”

She shakes her head. “If only it were that easy.”

“It comes more naturally than you would think.”

They spend a few minutes in silence. Lexa studies her the way she always seems to when they’re alone. Clarke finds it hard to determine where Lexa’s professional interest ends and where her physical attraction to Clarke starts, if she’s right about Lexa being attracted to her. Which she thinks she is. Clarke leans back in her chair and tries not to think about the inevitability of killing someone. In three weeks, she’ll be a murderer. If she kills someone on the first day, it could be as soon as two.

She’s not sure she’ll be able to live with herself after she does. But for her Mom’s sake, she at least has to live.  
She studies Lexa right back, watching the way her eyes dart away from Clarke’s. Watching the way she seems almost nervous in these quiet moments of theirs. Watching and almost enjoying. This is another one of those little things that makes Clarke want to cry. She might never get a good night’s sleep again. She might never hug her Mom again. She might never go on a first date again. She might never kiss anyone again. If her scheduled execution wasn’t less than 15 days away, she might have a completely different relationship with Lexa.

Lexa looks almost as sad as she feels. But for different reasons, she’s sure.

“It’s new for you isn’t it?” Clarke asks her. “Being invested.”

Lexa smiles. “What makes you think I’m invested in you?”

“What makes you think you’re not?”

She presses her lips together and looks away. “Yes. It’s new to me.”

-

The guilt catches up to her the next day, when Clarke sees Wells in the training center. He’s the only one at the knife station and he’s _awful_. Only one knife sticks to the dummy he’s aiming for. A few of the other tributes snicker.

A career tribute named John Murphy walks up to Wells, all strut and arrogance. Without a trace of respect, he plucks the last of Wells’ knives off the table in front of him and throws it.

Bulls-eye. She had expected nothing less from a Career. He’d been throwing knives since he could walk.

“Wells Jaha.” John pulls another knife from his pocket, twirling it around his fingers. “You scored a 9 in your private session. Only one point less than me.” He wipes his nose with the back of the hand that still holds his knife. “Glad to know it was only a fluke. Pathetic lumberjack.”

Wells stands tall. “Glad to know all those years of training only got you one more point than a lumberjack.”

John sobers, clenching his jaw. “You and me, we’re gonna have a lot of fun in that arena.” He spits on Wells’ shoes. “You watch your back.”

The crowd that was watching them starts to disperse once John goes back to his station, leaving Wells alone and knifeless at his. Clarke chews on the corner of her lip before she decides to close the distance between them.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

He doesn’t look up. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“Is that what you want? Are you punishing yourself?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, maybe I am. Would it change anything if I was?”

“No.”

“Fine. Then why don’t you practice what you preach for once?” He looks angry. Or maybe frustrated, she can’t totally decide which one before he continues. “You told me to stay away from you. Why aren’t you doing the same?”

“ _What_?”

“This is too hard, Clarke. You avoid me all the time, you won’t even eat meals in the same room as me. And I’m fine with that.” He shakes his head at himself. “I’m fine with that. I am. But you can’t talk to me and get my hopes up.”

“Oh, it’s _too hard_ for you?” She can’t believe this. She actually cannot believe the words that she’s hearing. “It’s too hard for you to deal with me hating you?”

He slams his hands against the table. “It’s killing me, Clarke!”

“Oh, is it killing you? Is it, Wells?” He must have realized what he said because his face falls. “Is it killing you like you killed my father? Is it putting a bullet in your head in the middle of your fucking living room in front of your sixteen year old daughter because her best friend couldn’t _wait_ to run to Daddy, to tell him everything so that he’d finally believe he was the perfect son he always wanted. Is it killing you, Wells? Is it killing you like that?”

Just when she thinks she could put Wells behind her, just when she thinks she could leave her father in the past, this happens. This always seems to happen. They’ve been having this exact conversation for months now. Nothing between them is ever going to change.

“Screw you, Wells. Screw you and screw your suicidal redemption mission.”

-

The tribute’s living quarters have a roof.

She learns this when she gets back from the training center after dark. Wells is in the living room, and anger still courses through her veins, so she turns and walks out the door. Which doesn’t get her far. She steps into the elevator again and hits 12. From the top floor, it’s maybe ten yards to her left until she finds a set of stairs and climbs it. She’s not thinking. She’s not really caring, either. She just wants to get away.

She briefly considers jumping from the edge of the roof. Not with any personal intentions to, but it seems reckless to leave that open as a possibility for other tributes. Maybe she isn’t supposed to be here. Maybe nobody else has found it before.

Or, maybe there’s a force field that throws you back the moment you touch the fenced ledge. She figures that out. When she touches the fenced ledge.

It’s just another box, in the end. Another cage that the Capitol has put her in. They take their citizens. Kill their citizens. Kill the citizens who try to stop the killing of more citizens. Then they kill more citizens. The districts are their own separate cages, forced into a fenced in box of manual labor. Even the richest districts still work for the Capitol.

Everyone works for the Capitol.

She was taken. And now she’s here. She was taken out of her cage, put into a smaller one, brought to the Capitol, only to put her in another. This one’s transparent, sure. But it does nothing to let her breathe. There’s no sense of freedom. And her future only holds more boxes. Boxes and cages. The arena is a cage, and the odds that she won’t come home in a box are slim. Boxes and cages, they’re all her life has ever been, all it could ever be.

When Lexa finds her on the roof, she’s throwing things. Anything she can find. Anything she can get her hands on. The roof has a small garden, and that’s as much as she knows about the garden – just that it exists, like she might not in two weeks’ time – before she starts to destroy it. She rips apart the flimsy fence around the plants, pulls rocks from the soil, hurls them against the force field. They bounce back and almost hit her but she couldn’t care less.

“Clarke, what are you doing?”

She throws a particularly heavy rock and it bounces back fast, making Clarke duck. “Throwing things.”

“You’re destroying Capitol property, that’s a crime.”

She throws her hands in the air. “What are they gonna do, Lexa? Kill me?”

Lexa sighs. “You’ll soon learn that there are much worse fates than death.”

She can feel her anger deflating. “What’s that even supposed to _mean_?”

Lexa folds her arms behind her back and waits for Clarke to calm down, or at least regulate her breathing, before she speaks.

“You told me that I had lost myself when I came out of the games.” Not exactly, but Clarke doesn’t correct her. It’s good that she’s been thinking about what she said. She needed to hear it. “You were wrong. I lost someone, but it was not me.”

Clarke drops the rock in her hand and watches it roll away as Lexa steps closer.

“How much do you remember of my games?”

“Everything. The games are mandatory, you know that.”

“Do you remember how I won?”

“You convinced the last tribute that the Capitol had killed his little sister as a punishment for something he did in the games. It was smart, actually. Really smart.” Clarke remembers sitting on the edge of her seat, watching Lexa deliver a flawless speech until the other tribute – Luke, just a fourteen year old kid, dropped his spear. He believed her just long enough to earn a knife in his chest, ending the game. “You confused him, he didn’t know whether he wanted to kill you or the President.”

“I inspired half a dozen hunger strikes throughout his district.”

She hadn’t heard anything about that.

“And when I came home… They did to me what I had said they did to Luke. Her name was Costia. They killed her. Because she was mine. Because it would hurt. Because it would keep me in line.”

“Costia. I remember her, they interviewed her while you were in the games.”

Lexa nods. “I expect that was the last time anyone saw her alive.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lexa turns her head to look past the force field and down onto the Capitol. “I thought I’d never get over the pain. But, I did.”

She thinks of her Dad. She thinks of watching the blood pool around his body on the rug of their living room. She thinks about turning her back on her best friend. She thinks about everything that haunts her, everything to do with that day.

“ _How_?”

“By recognizing it for what it is.” She turns to look at Clarke. “Weakness.”

“What is? Love?”

Lexa nods. “That’s what they do to people, Clarke. To us. To the people we let ourselves care about. You call yourself a tribute because you’re a player in these Games, but these Games are so much bigger than you think.”

“So you just stopped caring? About everyone?” Lexa doesn’t meet her eyes. She doesn’t say a word, and it’s both a yes and a no. “I could never do that.”

“Then you put the people you care about in danger.” Maybe she’s right. She knows without a shadow of a doubt that she was reaped because of her father. Because he had a child. It’s the reason victors don’t have children. “And the pain will never go away. The killing will never stop. With no one to care about, they have no control over you.”

She realizes this is a lesson. This isn’t a speech or an explanation. This is a lesson. This is a direction, mentor to tribute. And it scares the hell out of her.

“What do I do about the people I care about that are still alive?”

That seems to rattle Lexa. She opens her mouth to speak but shuts it. Clarke wonders if she has anyone left that the Capitol hasn’t killed. “You distance yourself. Cut them off, if you must. Make them hate you, if that’s what it comes to. No one is perfect in the Capitol’s eyes. If you care about someone, they can use them. And they will. They _will_ kill anyone that a victor cares about.”

“Lexa?” She asks. “Do me a favor. When that countdown gets to zero and I step off my pedestal?”

Lexa turns to look at her, probably wondering where the hell she’s going with all this.

“Don’t care about me.”

She smiles, but it’s a sad one. “I’ll do my best.”

“But Lexa? Until then… don’t be a stranger.” Lexa’s lips part and Clarke meets her eyes. They’re sad, but affectionate. If she didn’t have a million things on her mind, she could get lost in those eyes. She just might. “You might be the last friend I ever make.”

Clarke turns on her heel and walks away, leaving Lexa standing alone on the rooftop.


End file.
